Never Rejected

Never Rejected

Divorced Women

Read: Matthew 19:3-8

As she slipped into the back pew just as the service began, Roxanne quickly glanced around. Was it her imagination, or had the woman next to her avoided eye contact? Roxanne blushed as she grabbed a hymnal. Three months had passed since her divorce, and she still felt uncomfortable in public. Even her close friends seemed uneasy, as if they didn’t know what to say to her. Roxanne could certainly understand that—she didn’t know what to say about the breakup of her marriage, either. After thirty years as a wife, almost overnight she had joined the ranks of divorced women.

We tend to think of divorce as a modern issue, but it was a hot topic in New Testament times as well. The Pharisees tried to embroil Jesus in a theological debate about divorce, and women would have had a keen interest in his answer. At the time, people were divided between two opposing interpretations of the regulations in Deuteronomy 24:1-4. One group believed that a man could divorce his wife for nearly any reason; the other group supported divorce only in cases of infidelity. Jesus avoided the conflict by focusing on God’s original intention for the marital relationship to be permanent.

Divorce has become widespread in our society, but that doesn’t lessen the pain of its consequences. Divorced women often struggle financially, especially when they have children to care for. Some women feel like failures after their marriages break up. Even if some divorces end unhealthy relationships, women usually find the transition into single life difficult. God planned for marriage to be a lifetime commitment, but he doesn’t love us any less if we’re divorced. We are not less valuable in his eyes, and he still has a purpose and plan for our lives. We don’t need to worry that God will reject us, even if someone else does.

He will never abandon the godly.

Psalm 37:28